Philadelphia, Pa., Aug 29, 2017 / 12:04 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The number of seminarians at Philadelphia’s St. Charles Borromeo Seminary is on the rise, and rector Bishop Timothy Senior says Pope Francis’ visit has been a positive influence on the seminarians.
“With 167 seminarians, we’re very excited and not only just the numbers but just extraordinary young men, candidates that really reflect the rich diversity of our region,” Bishop Senior told CBS Philly.
There are 43 new seminarians at St. Charles Borromeo this year, 11 of whom are enrolled for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.
The enrollment is seminary’s largest since 2004. The bishop credited Pope Francis’ 2015 visit for influencing some of the seminary candidates. The Pope stayed at the seminary campus during his visit.
“I really do believe it sort of freed them up to speak more openly about their desire to be priests because the Holy Father’s example has made the priesthood more attractive,” he said.
One seminarian, Griffen Schlaepfer of Yardley, Penn., entered the seminary after a year at Pennsylvania State University. He cited the influence of others in motivating him to discern a vocation.
“My friends and family recognized it in me and saying ‘Wow, I can really see that as a path for you’ even when I didn’t see it in myself,” he told CBS Philly.
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Nebraska Capitol. / Credit: Steven Frame/Shutterstock
CNA Staff, Nov 1, 2024 / 14:55 pm (CNA).
Nebraska’s Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) has released an advisory clarifying that the state’s preborn protection law does not prohibit miscarriage care or lifesaving care amid a pro-abortion advertisement campaign that told the public otherwise.
“The Department of Health and Human Services has received several inquiries, from physicians and health care providers, expressing concern regarding recent radio and television ads that included incorrect and misleading information regarding the Preborn Child Protection Act,” the Oct. 28 advisory reads.
The health advisory came amid an advertising campaign by advocates of Nebraska’s Right to Abortion Initiative 439, which advocates for a right to abortion up to fetal viability in the state constitution. The campaign featured multiple ads that stated that women couldn’t receive miscarriage care and necessary health care because of Nebraska’s current law.
“Any time misleading information causes confusion among health care professionals, it could cause harm to the health and well-being of their patients,” stated the advisory by Dr. Timothy Tesmer, the chief medical officer of the DHHS in Nebraska.
In the health advisory, Tesmer didn’t name which ads the department was responding to, but he clarified that the current law, which protects unborn children after 12 weeks’ gestational age from abortion, provides exceptions for medical emergencies and for cases of rape or incest.
But an advertisement campaign by pro-abortion group Protect Our Rights: Nebraska for 439 told the public otherwise. In one advertisement, advocates said that in Nebraska, there is “an abortion ban that threatens women’s lives” and that “doctors can’t help them even if the pregnancy won’t survive. It puts their lives in danger.” Other advertisements by the same group state that doctors “can’t properly care for patients” and claim that women get sent home “because of the confusing abortion ban” when they have miscarriages.
Allie Berry, the campaign manager for Protect Our Rights, told NBC News that she believed the advisory referred to her group’s ads but said the advisory was designed to “confuse voters.”
The advisory noted that a medical emergency is legally defined as either a threat to the pregnant woman’s life or a “serious risk of substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function.”
“The act does not require a medical emergency to be immediate,” Tesmer noted in the advisory. “Physicians understand that it is difficult to predict with certainty whether a situation will cause a patient to become seriously ill or die, but physicians do know what situations could lead to serious outcomes.”
Nebraska also has a competing pro-life amendment, Initiative 434, which would prohibit abortions after the first trimester, with exceptions for medical emergencies and cases of rape or incest. Another advertisement by Protect Our Rights claimed that Initiative 434 would make Nebraska’s current law permanent and “opens the door” to banning miscarriage care and IVF.
The health advisory clarified that a variety of medical treatments are not prohibited by the Preborn Child Protection Act, including the removal of a child’s remains after pregnancy loss and the termination of a preborn child produced by in vitro fertilization (IVF) but not implanted in the mother’s womb. The advisory noted that any act intended to save the child’s life, as well as treatment for ectopic pregnancies, is not prohibited under the current law.
“Physicians should exercise their best clinical judgment, and the law allows intervention consistent with prevailing standards of care,” the advisory continued. “The law is deferential to a physician’s judgment in these circumstances.”
Political context
With two contradicting abortion-related measures on the 2024 ballot, Nebraskans will decide Nov. 5 on protection for unborn children in the nation’s only competing abortion ballots.
Marion Miner, the associate director of Pro-life and Family Policy for the Nebraska Catholic Conference, told CNA that “these lies … are abortion activists’ attempt to terrify voters into approving a radical pro-abortion constitutional amendment they would never otherwise support.”
“Abortion activists are putting women’s lives at risk in a gambit to advance a pro-abortion political agenda,” Miner added. “There are real potential human costs, including lost lives.”
She noted that “misinformation by abortion activists …is putting women’s lives at risk.”
“These lies have become so rampant in the weeks leading up to this election that public health officials felt the need to correct the record to prevent this misinformation from provoking a public health crisis,” Miner said.
Kelsey Pritchard, director of state public affairs for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, pointed out that this pro-abortion rhetoric is not isolated to Nebraska.
“This falsity that has been parroted by [Vice President] Kamala Harris and unchecked by most of the media leads women to delay seeking care and gives doctors pause when they need to act immediately,” Pritchard said in a statement shared with CNA.
“This falsity that has been parroted by Kamala Harris and unchecked by most of the media leads women to delay seeking care and gives doctors pause when they need to act immediately,” said Kelsey Pritchard, director of state public affairs at Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America. Credit: EWTN News/Screenshot
“Every state with a pro-life law, including Nebraska, protects women who experience a miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy, or any other medical emergency in pregnancy,” Pritchard emphasized. “This care continues to be available under ‘life of the mother’ exceptions, which allow physicians to rely upon their reasonable medical judgment.”
Recently, Harris amplified claims by several news outlets that two women died as the result of Georgia’s pro-life laws. But doctors say one woman, Amber Thurman, died because of the abortion pill and medical malpractice, while the other woman, Candi Miller, died of side effects from the abortion pill after she didn’t seek medical help.
“Women who need medical care should not be made to believe, because of ads they have seen on TV or in political mailers, that they have no option but to stay home instead of seeking treatment,” Miner said.
Bishop David Konderla of Tulsa. Courtesy of the Diocese of Tulsa.
Denver Newsroom, Jun 2, 2022 / 16:00 pm (CNA).
Bishop David A. Konderla of Tulsa celebrated a memorial Mass at St. Francis Hospital Thursday following a mass shooting on the hosp… […]
EWTN’s Montse Alvarado, Father Mike Schmitz, and Sister Miriam James Heidland are among the featured speakers at the July 2024 National Eucharistic Congress. / EWTN/Ascension/Twitter @onegroovynun
Boston, Mass., Jul 21, 2023 / 12:52 pm (CNA).
The U.S. bishops’ National Eucharistic Revival has just announced 17 speakers to be featured at the National Eucharistic Congress at an NFL stadium next July.
The National Eucharistic Revival is the U.S. bishops’ three-year initiative to inspire belief in and reverence for the Eucharist. The decision to embark on the initiative followed a 2019 Pew Research study that suggested only about one-third of U.S. Catholics believe the Church’s teaching that the Eucharist is truly the body and blood of Jesus Christ.
As part of the revival, a National Eucharistic Congress will be held July 17–21, 2024, and is expected to draw 80,000 Catholics to Lucas Oil Stadium, home to the Indianapolis Colts.
“The whole Congress will be an experience of prayer: a liturgical act offering the Catholic Church — those in attendance in Indianapolis as well as across the country — to the Father, through the Son, and in the Holy Spirit,” the congress’ website says.
The congress will have three masters of ceremonies, including Montse Alvarado, president and chief operating officer of CNA’s parent company, EWTN News, Inc.; Sister Miriam James Heidland, host of the “Abiding Together” podcast; and Father Josh Johnson, host of the podcast “Ask Father Josh.”
The just-announced list of speakers includes Winona-Rochester Bishop Robert Barron; the Holy See’s current apostolic nuncio to the United States, Cardinal-elect Christophe Pierre; Crookston Bishop Andrew Cozzens, who heads the Eucharistic Revival; and the Archdiocese of New York’s Auxiliary Bishop Joseph Espaillat.
The speakers include the popular face of Ascension Presents and host of the hit “Bible in a Year” podcast, Father Mike Schmitz; host of EWTN programs “Icons” and “Clic con Corazon Puro,” Father Agustino Torres, CFR; and author and professor Father John Burns of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee.
A number of women religious will be speaking as well, including an author and host of the “Hope Stories” podcast, Sister Josephine Garrett; Sister Bethany Madonna of the Sisters of Life, an order dedicated to pro-life ministry and eucharistic prayer; and Mother Adela Galindo, foundress of the Servants of the Pierced Hearts of Jesus and Mary.
Additionally, several leaders among the lay faithful will be speaking, including Chris Stefanick, founder of Real Life Catholic; Catholic author and commentator Gloria Purvis; speaker, author, and podcast host Katy Prejean McGrady; author and retreat leader Julianne Stanz; speaker and evangelist Damon Owens; Scripture professor Mary Healy; and evangelist Mari Pablo.
In June, Pope Francis met with members of the U.S. bishops’ committee for the National Eucharistic Congress and said that the congress “marks a significant moment in the life of the Church in the United States.”
The Holy Father praised the committee’s “efforts to contribute to a revival of faith in, and love for, the holy Eucharist,” which he called the “source and summit of the Christian life.”
He also blessed a monstrance, a vessel used to display the eucharistic host, that will be used at the congress.
“Um… might Archbishop Chaput have maybe something to do with the uptick of vocations? maybe?” He said sarcastically.